The Pentagon said it will refuse the United Nations special rapporteur on torture from interviewing or even meeting detainees held at the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay. The UN’s Juan E. Mendez called for increased access to the prison last week.

The Guardian reported Sunday that the Obama administration
had reaffirmed its commitment to secrecy at the notorious
detention center following a visit to Gitmo by a handful of new
US senators who are supportive of the prison.

Méndez, the UN’s special rapporteur on torture, “has been
invited to visit Guantánamo; however, he will not be permitted to
interview detainees,” Army Lieutenant Colonel Myles Caggins,
a Pentagon spokesman, told the Guardian.

Last week, Méndez
said he has been offered certain terms attached to a Gitmo
visit, yet he, like his predecessor in 2004, declined to accept
based on stipulations he deemed too narrow.

"The invitation is to get a briefing from the authorities and
to visit some parts of the prison, but not all, and specifically
I am not allowed to have unmonitored or even monitored
conversations with any inmate in Guantanamo Bay," he said.

Mendez has sought a level of unfettered access to Gitmo detainees
since 2010, yet the Obama administration continues to spurn his
requests, maintaining that Mendez is allowed only a restricted
viewing of the prison facilities.

Caggins reiterated this stance over the weekend, telling the
Guardian that Méndez and other UN human rights officials have
been offered “a degree of access to its detention facilities
at Guantánamo under conditions consistent with the nature of
those facilities (eg, facility visits do not include private
meetings with detained enemy forces), although no one has
accepted the offer.”

Méndez has called indefinite detention -- the hallmark quality of
the Guantanamo prison -- “itself a form of cruel, inhuman and
degrading treatment.” His office has
said forced feedings used by Guantanamo officials to break
prisoner hunger strikes “in some cases can amount to
torture.”

Around 122 detainees remain locked away at Gitmo, far from the
public eye, as the majority of them have been held at the
facility without trial or charge.

Guantanamo continues to be widely criticized for its inhuman
housing conditions and questionable interrogation methods – among
them force-feeding, regarded by many as torture, the fact that
lawyers can’t gain access to their clients, and the fact that the
majority of prisoners still haven’t been charged.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is allowed
detainee visits , among other access at Guantanamo. But, in order
to maintain its privileges, ICRC does not publicly divulge
details of its visits to prisons.

“Due to its special role under the law of war, the ICRC has
full access to the detainees at Guantánamo, including private
meetings, and maintains an ongoing dialogue with the United
States regarding conditions of confinement and the detainees’
overall wellbeing,” Caggins told the Guardian.

The ongoing refusal of detainee access for a top UN human rights
official was on par with the Obama administration’s
“continued policy of secrecy” surrounding the detention
center, said Laura Pitter of Human Rights Watch.

“Yes, the US gives the ICRC access but that access is subject
to strict confidentiality. If the US is truly treating detainees
humanely at Guantánamo and it [is] proud of the detention
conditions there, why not open the facility up for inspection by
the UN special rapporteur, who has access to other prisons all
over the world,” Pitter said.

Cori Crider, a lawyer for the human rights group Reprieve, told
the Guardian her organization stands behind Méndez for refusing
to take a “Potemkin Village tour” of Guantanamo.

“Barring the UN’s torture expert from talking to prisoners is
just the Pentagon’s latest effort to keep a tight lid on the grim
realities of life at Gitmo: the desperation, the pain of
force-feeding, the abuse,” Crider said.

Crider represented former Guantanamo detainee Abu Wa’el Dhiab,
who is involved in a federal lawsuit that sought the disclosure
of videoed force-feedings at Gitmo. Last
fall, a federal judge ordered the US to release the tapes.

“If the Obama administration is really committed to
transparency, it ought to put up or shut up, let respected UN
experts interview detainees, and release the force-feeding
tapes,” Crider said.

Crider added: “The reason they won’t let Mr Méndez interview
detainees is the same reason that the administration is fighting
to suppress the videotapes of my client Abu Wa’el Dhiab being
strapped into a restraint chair and force-fed – the authorities
don’t want Americans to see the stomach-turning truth about
Guantanamo today.”

Five newly elected US senators visited Guantanamo over the
weekend. The senators – all supportive of the continued existence
of what has become an international symbol of human rights abuses
-- included Tom Cotton, of Arkansas.

"In my opinion, the only problem with Guantanamo Bay is there
are too many empty beds and cells there right now," Cotton
said of Gitmo during a Senate hearing in February.

"We should be sending more terrorists there for further
interrogation to keep this country safe. As far as I'm concerned,
every last one of them can rot in hell. But as long as they can't
do that, they can rot in Guantanamo Bay."

The majority of detainees remaining at Gitmo have been cleared
for release, but remain there due to political or diplomatic
obstacles in repatriating them.

Approximately another 30 or so prisoners have been designated for
continued detention without trial. These are men considered by
the US as too dangerous to release, yet against whom the
government lacks usable evidence for a conviction.

Even less than that have been referred for prosecution through
the Pentagon’s highly-secretive military commission system. Those
detainees include Khalid
Sheikh Mohammed and four co-defendants, who are accused of
orchestrating the September 11, 2001 attacks. The oft-delayed
case is still in pretrial
hearings. The men were arraigned in May 2012 and charged with
2,973 counts of murder and other terror-related charges.